Journal

MAKE YOURSELF AVAILABLE

Lake Bled has become a busy place in the past few years – Summer times especially. Usually November was the time of the “dead season” when everything stopped, you could have totally alone walks around the lake, with noone around, some hotels closed down to get some time off. It was a month that marked the end of the season. But now it’s harder to get those quiet moments with the lake and its life, because there is always someone around that has loud talks, or the traffic ruins your silence at some parts of the lake.

But today it happened that it was cold and cloudy outside, not quite pleasant to have a walk, but in my case a chance to enjoy the silence with noone around. Because of such crowded space that lake Bled happened to become, I and a lot of locals as well, don’t enjoy walking around it anymore. It feels like the sparkle of the lake is gone.

But … the sparkle ignites again (at least inside of me) when there is time for silence, quiet space, for an intimate time that you can have with this place – BY YOURSELF, noone around, not even your loved ones or friends, no phones to upload things on stories and snaps. This is when you start to hear the music of the lake, you start to notice the animals, you start to notice the water moving. You start to feel the place.

After quite some time, one little bird that I hung out with at my walks, greeted me again. I couldn’t believe it is still there. We were alone on the street just next to the lake, in total silence. Sharing a moment, just the two of us, a sacred time with tiny yet magnificant being trusting me and showing me is beauty that happens almost every winter. A treasure that you find, if you are in silence and calm.

And then the sound of cormorants who come to the lake every season and inhabit particular part of the lake and some of the specific trees. I remember when I first saw them I was totally fascinated by their sound, that was so powerful – historic. It reminded me of Jurrasic Park movies. Now they create a part of the winter sounds of lake Bled.

At some points you stop and look at the water that is flowing with the help of cold, cold breeze that you also feel it on your cheeks and jaw that gets frozen, preventing you to speak normally, which is good – to keep you silent and observant.

I stopped at the shore when I saw two (and probably the only ones, because during the summer I haven’t seen more of them) of the magnificant swans. Just TWO! When I was little there were more of them. Probably they don’t like the noise and the crowdedness neither. Neither the food people give them that makes them sick, altough they think they are doing a wonderful thing, helping a swan get some food. Yet they are harming them. So if you are reading this, please don’t feed them with junk food or what you are eating, also not with bread.

And then during this walk, memories step in – of the winters where lake was frozen, how we skated, how we walked to the island instead of swam. And the sound of the ice in the night also that can also get very scary, but so magical. And it makes me think about the cycles of the nature. The cycles that we are also a part of. And this one, winter, is for silence, it is for drawing the energy inwards. To be observant.

Through that, a story, a myth comes up on my mind.

If we would let the lake get its silence, get its balance. Stop the noisy sounds and pollution, more animals might come back, and the swans would feel safe to breed their babies and not be totally stressed out of everyone trying to get closer to them to make it look cooler. Nature might pull back its magic. Lake would become louder with its vibrancy of nature. More grass and trees would start to grow. Because of that winds would blow in differents paths that would create the harmony in the weather. Pushing more of the winter cold in the valley – to make the nature rest. To make the lake rest. And to make it crack and create those winter sounds, to make you crack on the inside and be observant of your own nature inside. Of your own cycles. And not run fast around the lake with your earphones in your ears that make you less available to what is inside of you and what is surrounding you.

Make yourself available. For the silence. This is where the magic starts to unfold. This is where you happen to hear the music of the lake. This is where you meet you.

If you will come to lake Bled – take time for quiet early morning / evening walks. The colder they are, the better. Enjoy it.